


flowers for a love i never had

by whimsicalMelancholy



Category: Block B
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 02:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalMelancholy/pseuds/whimsicalMelancholy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he thinks those flowers, stained with droplets of his own blood, would be quite the sight to behold if it wasn't so morbid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: oleanders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roosanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roosanne/gifts).



> The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs of flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals. It can be cured without side effects only when the feelings are returned.
> 
> For my mom Roos <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first time, it's oleanders: for caution, beware.

it’s in the ungodly hours of the morning that jaehyo first feels his stomach begin to churn, discomfort a boat in the raging seas inside him. he quickly untangles himself from blankets rumpled from a nights tossing and turning to rush to the dorm bathroom, just barely making it to the toilet, doubling over and emptying out the contents of his stomach.

but instead of the acrid and bitter taste of last night's ramyun mixed with his own stomach acids he expects, he's surprised to feel as though silk is flowing out of his throat. after he coughs up the last few pieces of whatever it is he's retching, he glances down into the bowl to see… flower petals?

carefully, jaehyo reaches down to pluck a petal from the surface of the water to inspect it. he rubs the soft petal between his fingers, observing it closely. it's the petal of a oleander, drops of jaehyo’s own blood dripping steadily off the pink petal. he thinks it would be quite beautiful, the small pile of petals gently dispersing in the toilet bowl, were it not so morbid. instead of panicking and yelling for the other members to figure out why the hell he just vomited up a bunch of oleander petals, but he's suddenly awash with a wave of heartbreak. he can't quite explain why, but settles for curling up on the cold tile of the rarely cleaned bathroom, and begins to cry quietly.

* * *

pounding on the bathroom door awakens jaehyo the next morning, and he's startled awake by yells of _“hyung, i gotta take a piss!”_ in an angry voice jaehyo knows all too well. he quickly scrambles up off the ground and yells back, “just a second, jiho!”.

jaehyo hurries to flush the evidence of last night and manages to make himself look somewhat presentable before opening the door to his disgruntled leader.

“fucking finally,” jiho mutters, gently shoving jaehyo aside to step into the bathroom, bare feet padding along the tile floor quietly. “did you sleep in here or something?”

jaehyo averts his gaze from the blonde boy quickly and shuffles out of the bathroom, but he's stopped by jiho’s hand on his wrist.

“hyung.”

jaehyo snaps around, eyes going wide with panic.

“w-what?”

he glances over to the toilet whose lid he forgot to put down, and sees a few petals floating on the water, ever so slightly pink.

damn. he forgot that the toilet was broken.

“i-i can explain.” the elder stammers quickly.

“hanahaki disease,” jiho says suddenly, cutting jaehyo off.

“hanawhat?”

“hanahaki disease,” jiho repeats, letting go of jaehyo’s wrist and leaning against the sink. jaehyo settles against the doorframe. “it’s a rare disease that occurs when someone has an unrequited love and they just vomit flowers until their feelings are returned, or they get surgery to get all emotion removed. or, they could just die.”

“wait, how do you know this?”

“my father,” jiho replies quickly. “he was never around much for my childhood. he fell for another woman and developed the disease. taewoon told me it was red tulips. he got the surgery, and we never saw him again.” jaehyo knows he’s trying to mask the note of bitterness in his voice.

“i’m sorry,” jaehyo whispers. “i didn’t know.”

“it’s okay. what matters right now is you. do you think you’re going to be alright?”

jaehyo can only manage to nod his head shakily.

“if you don’t mind me asking, who is it?” jiho says softly.

“i…” jaehyo runs a hand through his disheveled hair. “minhyuk. it’s minhyuk.”

“god, i’m so sorry,” jiho mumbles breathily. “that...really sucks.”

the both of them know, everyone in the band but apparently yukwon, that minhyuk’s got the biggest crush on the other dancer. it’s been like that for the longest time. jaehyo almost wants to vomit again at the thought of the two together. minhyuk. together with some that isn’t him.

“yeah. it does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u suffered even a little  
> it gets worse soon


	2. chapter two: daffodils and pink camellias

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> next, a single daffodil, floating in a sea of camellias for misfortune and longing.

it’s been only two days since the first little incident, and it hasn’t gotten better. at all. now that jaehyo knows exactly what’s going on, it’s made things even worse if anything. every time he looks at minhyuk, or the elder smiles at him or even so much as throws a glance his way, jaehyo feels his stomach turn and break a little on the inside. still, he tries his best to keep up a facade that says that everything is going to be okay. he pretends everything is alright and normal, for minhyuk’s sake. he doesn’t want the dancer to worry about him, or know what’s happening. he doesn’t want him to feel guilty about it, because it’s really not minhyuk’s fault. this is jaehyo’s burden to carry, and jaehyo’s alone.

this strategy doesn’t work for long.

they’re on stage, flashing lights and bee-themed lightsticks kissing at seven boys’ sweaty skin, and jaehyo forgets that anything is wrong when he has fans cheering for him and seeing their smiling faces makes him feel infinitely better. he grins and finishes up his part to nalina enthusiastically, jumping up and down to the music. it’s the last song of the stage, and he feels kind of sad that they’ll have to leave these people that love him and his members so dearly soon, but eventually they’ll meet again, so that’s okay.

what’s not okay is when he feels an arm sling over his shoulder, and something tells him that it’s _him._

he turns to glance at the man stuck to his side, and he can see the dimple and slicked back hair and knows it’s minhyuk, and the reminder of the disease floods back to him along with the urge to run off and reject what’s inside him again.

but instead, he manages a smile and tries his best to keep bouncing to the beat, but now he feels held down, physically and emotionally.

he’s not sure how he managed to keep it in until after they said their goodbyes and promised to be back soon, but immediately rushes to the bathroom backstage as soon as he can. he leans over the bowl and coughs, petals rushing to float on the water. his body forces out a few more every time he thinks he’s done, and he can feel tears rushing down his cheeks, landing with the blood-stained petals. there’s more blood than there was the first time, and jaehyo feels a pang in his heart looking at a single yellow bloom drifting in a sea of pink camellia, stained with his own crimson lifeline. his hands are shaky, and he drops the small handful of petals he had scooped out back into the toilet. sobbing and trembling, he scoots away from the offending flower-filled porcelain, and he can feel his heart slowly crumble.

“jaehyo?”

jaehyo’s heart stops, and his breath catches in his throat. minhyuk.

“jae, you’ve been in there for a while. are you alright?”

“jiho,” jaehyo manages to choke. “get jiho.”

he can almost hear minhyuk’s eyebrows furrowing and can definitely hear _“if you’re sure…”_ , and a few minutes later, the door creaking open quietly. the boy with bleached blonde hair closes the door behind him and drops onto his knees to hold jaehyo, and he lets jaehyo cry onto his shoulder.

so he cries, he cries and cries and cries, because that’s all he can do.


	3. chapter three: yellow tulips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's yellow tulips: hopelessly in love

the episodes start happening more frequently. sometimes two or three times a day, as many as a dozen times a week, he’ll find himself sobbing in the bathroom with a toilet full of yellow tulip petals swimming in little pools of his blood.

he can barely stand to look at minhyuk anymore, because all it does is make him hurt, and it hurts even more every time he sees minhyuk laugh at one of yukwon’s jokes or see the two embrace. god, it hurts so much.

the dance studio is bursting with energy, excitement and determination overflowing from everyone but the subvocalist. he’s trying his best, the best he can while minhyuk is in the same room, too far away from him but at the same time too close. his mind is filled with cotton and he can’t think clearly, and he’s just moving his body like he vaguely remembers how to. his movements are below average par, but nobody seems to notice so he guesses it’s okay.

he’s wrong.

the music stops and they get a chance to take a break, taeil and jihoon passing a water bottle to each other, jiho and kyung arguing heatedly over something like usual. instinctively, jaehyo looks around for minhyuk, and is surprised to find the man right next to him. he sits himself down right next to the younger, seemingly oblivious to jaehyo’s ghostly white face.

“yo, jae. you alright?”

for a moment, the panic alarms in jaehyo’s brain start to scream  _ “he knows! he knows!” _

“you look a little pale,” minhyuk says, putting a hand on jaehyo’s forehead. jaehyo flinches and his stomach turns, and he can almost feel the tulips blossoming inside him. “are you coming down with something?”

“n-no, i’m okay, really. it’s nothing, i promise, i’m gonna be fine,” jaehyo explains hurriedly. “it’s all good. we’re cool.”

minhyuk looks at jaehyo sideways, eyes concerned.

“if you say so,” minhyuk says, tone unconvinced. “just, get some rest, okay? i worry about you sometimes.” he gives quick squeeze to jaehyo’s knee before getting up and walking over to yukwon.

“yeah. okay,” jaehyo mumbles to minhyuk’s retreating back, further away from him and closer to yukwon. he tucks his head between his legs, fighting back the urge to run off somewhere far, far away and never come back. “rest.”


	4. chapter four: anemone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's getting worse, marked with anemone for fading hope and feeling forsaken.

it’s getting worse, so much worse. it’s almost been a month since that first night jaehyo was lying on the cold tile floor, broken, pieces scattered everywhere like the petals surrounding him.

he’s bedridden now, pretending to everyone but jiho that it’s just a really bad fever or something along those lines, and that yes, he’ll be fine soon, no you don’t need to worry.

sometimes the other members come to visit him, taeil bringing him books about fish and reading to him like an excited child, kyung and jihoon with stand-up comedy routines that jaehyo didn’t know they had time to make up, jiho taking care of him with soothing teas and taking away plastic buckets of blood stained anemones, yukwon with stories about what’s been happening recently, and minhyuk with, well, himself. he thinks that’s the best and worst part of his weeks.

today, it’s jiho visiting him with a cup of licorice root tea for jaehyo’s throat, getting worse and worse by the day. comfortable silence is only broken by the occasional cough or quiet sip of tea from jaehyo until jiho breaks it with a question that’s far too heavy for either of them to handle.

“did you consider the surgery?”

and jaehyo’s hands tremble and he almost drops the cup of hot tea onto the bed.

“i…” jaehyo croaks quietly, voice hoarse. he’s pretty sure he’s on the verge of tears.

“i’m sorry, just... i don’t want you to die, hyung, and i… i don’t think that, y’know.”

the weight of jiho’s unspoken words hang in the air, settling over the pair like a thick, uncomfortable blanket. jaehyo can feel his stomach start to turn again.

“i know,” jaehyo chokes out. “i know.” he keeps his words short as to not harm his poor throat further, and definitely not because he’s not sure what else to say. he doesn’t want to admit it, that minhyuk might never love him back, and that he might never get better, but the both of them know it. they know it, and that knowledge keeps jaehyo’s heart trapped tightly, keeping him in this little box he can’t do anything but sulk in.

“please just think about it. i don’t want to lose you. nobody does.”

with those words, jiho quietly gets up from his seat next to jaehyo's bed and leaves. he pauses for a moment at the doorframe, almost like he’s about to say something. instead, he just says, “please consider it.”

and he walks out, and jaehyo leans over the side of the bed to choke up purple blooms drowning in his blood.

he lies back down, on the verge of tears, not bothering to wipe away the quickly drying crimson on his lips.

he feels so empty.


	5. chapter five: primrose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tiny as they are, the primroses are everywhere. "i can't live without you," they say.

he doesn’t think he’s going to make it.

minhyuk starts visiting less and less, from three or four times a week to two, one, and sometimes jaehyo doesn’t see him for days or even weeks on end.

times like those, the disease gets worse. jaehyo can feel the flowers blooming in his stomach, ready to be forcibly ejected along with his blood. his face has gotten deathly pale, and he can hardly muster up the strength to sit up, only to roll over and let his body get rid of a storm of small flowers. they’re starting to get bigger now, not just petals anymore, but the pistils as well. not even he and jiho manage to make any semblance of conversation anymore either.  instead, every time the blonde man visits with a hot cup of tea, an eerie, unfamiliar silence falls around them. jaehyo wants to cry in moments like these. everyone else is quieter, jaehyo can’t decide if they know what’s going on, or if they just don’t know what to do.

lost in his thoughts, jaehyo can feel pollen itching at the back of his throat. he almost wants to sneeze.

so he does, along with the sneeze comes enough small primroses of all colors dyed red with his blood to make an entire bouquet.

the blood stains his bedsheets, rumpled from his nights of weak tossing and turning.

it’s that moment that minhyuk walks into jaehyo’s room (previously his and jihoon’s, but now jihoon’s moved out into taeil’s room to give jaehyo some privacy), and before the elder can say anything, he sees the mess of blood and flowers all over jaehyo’s bed, framing his pale, deathly complexion. jaehyo wants to run away, to hide, so minhyuk doesn’t figure out what’s going on, but he feels tears roll down his cheeks instead.

“i’m sorry,” jaehyo manages to say. “i’m so sorry.”

“s-shit! jae, what happened?!” minhyuk cries, running over to jaehyo’s side.

jaehyo offers a weak smile.

“minhyuk, you’ve been gone so long. just stay here with me, please.”

so he does, and jaehyo falls asleep on sheets stained with blood to the sound of minhyuk’s best attempts not to cry and the feeling of minhyuk’s hand on his.


	6. chapter six: sweetpea, forget-me-not, and cyclamen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he's not getting better. not at all. the forget-me-nots and cyclamens he twirls in the middle of the night whisper remember me forever, resignation, and goodbye.

he’s not going to get better.

jaehyo’s condition has been found out by everyone at this point, and they’re visiting more and more often, gently trying to convince him to please, please do something about it. but every time, jaehyo shakes his head no, and says that he’d rather die with his emotions than live without them. tells them that it’s okay, it’s his problem to deal with, not theirs, with a glass smile covering a slowly breaking heart.

jaehyo doesn’t feel like he’s dying, but rather that he’s already dead. he can hardly move and speaking is such a difficult task, he just smiles and listens to the other members talk to him about pointless things while they try not to cry for their dying friend.

when he’s left alone, he uses what little of his strength is left to hum little songs to himself, songs that he’s loved for a long time and that he might never hear again. it hurts his throat, now that stems are forming with the flowers as well, but it makes him feel just that little bit better. he’s all but gotten used to the flowers now, with his final weeks or even days coming, more and more kind of flowers show up, although he can’t really tell what color they are when they’re floating in uncomfortably large pools of his own blood. sometimes, he’ll pick up a forget-me-not or a cyclamen bloom, and twirl it in his fingers while humming to himself, ignoring the warm feeling of his own life liquid running down his hand. he wonders to himself, would he go to a better place? would people remember him fondly? maybe somewhere out there his family would recall his stories to his brother, someone to keep his life and memory going, take a piece of him into the world. would there be a friend that would keep his picture in a frame dusted and pristine next to their nightstand so every time they woke up or went to sleep, they’d think about him and remember how nice it was with him around? it doesn’t matter. if it’s any way to die, jaehyo supposes this isn’t the worst way it could go. he’s given up and accepted his fate.

minhyuk finds jaehyo not breathing the next morning, stems having strangled the younger overnight.

he screams, screams until his throat his raw and cries until he’s run out of tears, the members all gathered around jaehyo’s cold, lifeless body. minhyuk thinks he’s calmed down enough to say something, but once he sees the flower that jaehyo had died holding, hand crusted in red, he starts again, thoughts of  _ why? why did it have to be him? why couldn’t i just have loved him back? god, how was i so stupid?  _ flooding his head. he’s sobbing onto jaehyo’s body, desperately trying to find warmth that everybody knows isn’t there. the other members can’t do anything but look on helplessly, trying their bests not to cry as well.

“i’m sorry,” minhyuk tells his dead friend’s corpse over and over again. “i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry.”

minhyuk desperately hopes that somewhere, somehow, jaehyo can hear him, hear his pleas for him to come back, hear his apologies.

everyone knows he can’t.

jaehyo is gone.

sweetpea he had died holding.

_ “thank you for the lovely time. goodbye.” _

the small bloom taunts minhyuk as he sobs.


	7. epilogue: a bouquet of tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things aren't ever going to be the same, minhyuk thinks one morning.

minhyuk wakes up one morning, stomach churning and rushes to the bathroom. he prepares for the acrid taste of whatever it was he ate last night, but what comes instead is a flurry of petals. when he’s done choking everything up, he glances down and sees so many different kinds of flowers. he carefully picks up each one with a shaky hand to inspect them.

tea roses. i’ll remember always.

dark crimson roses. mourning.

mixed zinnias.

in memory of a lost friend.

he collapses against the very floor jaehyo has once lied down on, the both of them crying and heartbroken, one of them now gone.

he doesn’t look back into the bowl, because he knows what’s there.

purple hyacinths.

regret. asking for forgiveness.

and minhyuk knows, he’s never going to be the same again.

he hopes he’ll get to see jaehyo soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally done! it didn't take me as long as i thought it would, but it was fun writing this, thank you for suffering through this with me~ comments are appreciated <3
> 
> and mom? you're welcome


End file.
